Author Archives: Paul

…..was jazz-funk night and the DJ played all the latest US imports. When he went on holiday, I was asked to stand in, but I didn’t have a jazz-funk collection like his. However, I reasoned, he wouldn’t have a dreadful old singalong collection like mine, so I brought two boxes of these instead. I put […]

Taken seriously by no-one over the age of ten. And even then, only by the geekiest ten-year olds. Well, you wouldn’t think so this morning as the BBC celebrates the 50th Anniversary of what is now the considered to be a serious drama. It was generally ridiculed rather than revered with things like this chart-topping […]

….as the world commemorates the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. When I was a child, this tragedy was still quite recent. And because he was a Catholic of Irish descent, the people of “my community” took it very badly. In many Catholic households, a framed picture of the former president hung alongside those […]

But he hasn’t. Rod Stewart is just doing what he’s always done. He’s singing songs, and singing them brilliantly. He was always a great interpreter of other people’s songs, like First Cut is The Deepest and Handbags & Gladrags. And he’s just kept doing it. Yes, he was spectacularly naff in the 80s, living in […]

Will this spawn a new generation of playground bores who can recite every word of the Parrot Sketch? Oh, I do hope not. It’s often assumed that John Cleese went from the glory of Python straight to further adulation in Fawlty Towers but he didn’t. He laboured for a while in between as Les Dawson’s […]

A kid, no more than about twelve, standing alone at the bus stop in school uniform, having a fag. Smoking schoolboys were once a very common sight. An enterprising newsagent near our school knew his market very well and used to sell single cigarettes for 5p each. This boy looked like he was on day […]

This is always regarded as a summer song but with that opening line, it’s very obviously about winter. Looking out at brown leaves and a grey sky, this is the ideal day to play it. Michelle Phillips, the co-writer, was expressing her desire to be back in the warmth of her native California while enduring […]

It was my friend Pete O’Riordan who introduced me to Arthur Alexander, a largely unknown soul singer whose work was covered by some very famous artists. The Beatles covered this one on their first album but Arthur’s original is much better. I love the way he says “Give back my ring to me and you’ll […]

….but one particular portrait gave me the creeps. It was of Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s father. There is no deeper tragedy than the loss of a child but something about this man has always made me feel uneasy. When Amy was alive, he was accused of cashing in on her success, especially when he made a […]

Oh, I think so. We’ve had West End musicals based on the songs of Queen, Abba and The Spice Girls, so I’d have thought the bearded Brummie’s work was ideal for genre. The man is a genius. He formed The Move, ELO and Wizzard. He wrote and produced a solo album called Boulders on which […]